When I was a kid, my family didn’t take big fancy summer vacations. Instead, we went to the farm.

“The farm” is my family’s dairy farm in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. My dad grew up there, and my two uncles took it over from my grandfather when he passed away in the late 70s. My grandmother continued living there for years until she finally had to moved into an assisted living home. Today one of my uncles and his two adult children, my cousins, are in charge.

Last night as I scrolled Facebook, I came across a mention of the movie “The Hunt for Red October.” Long-time friends and readers of this blog may remember that I have a particular soft spot for this movie…and it’s all because of the farm. There wasn’t any significant TV reception there, so we turned to movies, and my grandmother had several VHS movies stored in a cabinet. Most of them were old classics, which didn’t hold a lot of interest to my siblings or me. But somehow, she also had “The Hunt for Red October.”

In the morning, we’d get up early and catch a ride over to the barn to feed calves and help out with other chores. We were a family of city kids, so farm work was a fun novelty, and my uncle paid us so we earned a bit of money too. We’d get a ride back to Grandmother’s house around 9 or 10. We’d usually watch “The Price Is Right,” which was on one of the only channels that came through clearly, and eat lunch.

And often, after lunch, we’d watch “The Hunt for Red October.” If I’ve seen that movie once, I’ve seen it 30 times.

I have so many extremely fond memories of summer days at the farm. Watching this totally run-of-the-mill 1990 action movie over and over is somehow one of them — to the point that the mere mention of the movie on a random Facebook post was enough to prompt a comment and bring a smile to my face.

I think my parents probably remember us watching it, but they might not. Different things always stick out in different minds, right? My siblings and I all swear up and down that when we were kids, my mom mixed regular and honey nut Cheerios in a container because the latter alone was “too sweet.” On rare occasions, I would sneak a coveted bowl of “full honey nut.” And yet when this came up a few years ago, my mom had no memory of it! (Or so she claimed…)

As I thought about all this in the span of only a minute or so, I realized that someday Emma and Charlotte will have their own weird, idiosynchratic, hopefully happy memories of growing up — and those memories may or may not stick out to me as notable or special. It’s the kind of parenting realization that’s so obvious yet somehow still mind-boggling.

My kids are individuals who will have views and ideas and memories that are totally independent from my own? Really?

Today you are 15 months old! And while overall you still seem very much my little baby, you are starting to give me more and more glimpses of the toddler you are quickly morphing into.

First things first: you are officially walking! Your first true steps were in mid October and it took a little over a month to really find your balance and get comfortable on two legs. But earlier this week I went out of town for work and when I got back, it seemed like you had taken huge strides (pun intended) in a mere two days. Last night I watched you get up from the floor without anything to pull yourself up on for the first time that I’d seen. You then proceeded to toddle through my study and into the kitchen. You are walking at least as much or more than you are crawling, so there’s no going back!

You continue to grow like a weed and have quite the belly happening these days. Some current favorite foods are blueberries, eggs, bread and noodles, and the other night I think you ate more of the chicken tortilla rice casserole I made than Emma did. You’re also drinking reasonably well from a sippy cup after months of resistance, and last week when we went to Corpus Christi for Thanksgiving, we officially ended all bottles. Yaaaay! (Now if you would just stop throwing your plate and cup on the floor, repeatedly, that would be great.)

Also on the list of things you love are 1) Daddy and 2) books. It’s not uncommon for you to show some separation anxiety when we’re in new situations, even with people like Momo or Uncle Alex if you haven’t seen them in a while. You’re happy enough to stick with me, but I think you might be even happier when you’re with Daddy. Your eyes light up when he gets home from work and you’ve come close to literally jumping out of my arms to get to him. And when you combine your love for Daddy with your love for books — something he can definitely appreciate as your fellow bibliophile — it’s pretty magical. Seeing you climb into his lap with a board book clutched in your fist makes me smile every single time.

You also love your big sister, and no one can get you to laugh quite as hysterically as Emma. As you’ve gotten bigger, you’ve both become more interested in engaging with each other. It can be a challenge to let you play together while also policing the situation to prevent inadvertent biting (you) and unfair toy-taking (her) but it’s also just really fun to see you interact. I’ve noticed you trying to emulate her in so many ways, from wanting to eat with a fork to picking up her crayons and trying to draw. And even though I know I’ll be refereeing disagreements for years to come, I look forward to seeing your relationship continue to grow.

I write these letters for you, Charlotte, but I suppose you could argue that they’re also for me. It’s a way to document what’s going on in your life at this moment, but it’s also a way for me to work through what’s going on with me as a mother. So here’s the part where I say that along with all the good in the last three months, they’ve also felt pretty rough for me. You’ve sprouted at least 5 new teeth. You’ve battled several rounds of illness including a couple rounds of truly miserable stomach issues. The daycare has transitioned you to one nap each day and you’re still not really adjusted to that schedule. Your teachers tell me that you are happy and smiley throughout the day, but I only get to see you in the evenings, when you often fall apart as soon as we walk out the daycare door.

I have been frustrated by your frequent crankiness, and annoyed that I can’t seem to “fix” or “solve” it with either a literal or figurative wave of my hand. But as I looked through all my snapshots from this fall to pick a few for this letter, I saw how many of them were happy occasions. You don’t cry all the time — of course you don’t! And somehow I manage to forget that not only are you 15 months old…but you are ONLY 15 months old. You can’t tell me what’s bothering you. You can’t ask for a snack if you’re hungry or put yourself down for a nap if you’re tired.

And so I am trying very hard to remember that you are little, and to work on my patience. If you are happy and calm while in my arms and sad and screaming the moment I put you down…well, can I really be annoyed by the fact that my daughter wants me? In this phase of our lives, maybe I just need to hold you as much as I can.

Charlotte, you remind me on a daily basis that I don’t know everything about parenting yet. That I am still learning how to be a good mom. Some days I think: this is terrible! Shouldn’t I have things figured out by now? But other days I think it’s wonderful. I am not the same person at 38 that I was at 18, or 25, or even 34. And you are not the same kid you were at 3 months, or 6 months, or even a mere season ago. How lucky we are to have already spent 15 months growing and changing and learning together! How lucky we are to have many, many months ahead.

After climbing into the chair as pictured above, in the baby section of Target:

“I think I can take care of babies now! Whose baby is gonna be first?”

—

Emma: “I lost a finger!”Me: “Um, what!?”Emma: “Oh I found it again.”Me: “Well that’s a relief.”Emma: “It would be hard to put a bandaid on a lost finger. Because it is a circle and bandaids don’t go in a circle. I don’t know what we would do!”

—

Jose: “Emma, you need to listen.”Emma: “It’s not easy.”Jose: “It’s very easy, just listen to me.”Emma (grumpily): “It’s not easy for ME.”

—

One evening we walk around the corner to the mailbox, and there are several cars parked there:

“Oh, who’s having a party at the mailbox?!”

—

While in Corpus Christi, we go to see Alex and Krystle’s new apartment. Upon entering the complex and seeing the whole multi-unit building:

Hello!

I'm Sarah, a NASA engineer by day and quilter by night. I live in Houston with my husband and our two young daughters. I've had this ol' blog for more than 15 years, and these days it's home to my quilting work, snippets of family life, and occasional musings on my engineering career.